Need to lose muscle!

[kiwichick]

Goal for myself:
lose 4.5kg fat
maintain or lose up to 2.5kg muscle
why: to achieve smaller leaner physique like the one I had 6 weeks out from competing last year.

Progress:
lost 4.15kg fat
increased lean body mass 4kg
why: could water retentio be a problem due to high protein diet or is it possible to be ultra sensitive to varying water intakes (good during the week, not so strict during the weekend)

Help required:
*What type of workouts should I be doing to lose mass? I know that sounds strange - we're usually trying to gain muscle aren't we, but I am an endo/meso so seem to have increased my LBM without too much trouble.
*Assuming my BF% is correct (have checked and double checkedby few different PTs) why am I not looking leaner at 14%, I've been told I retain a lot of fluid under the skin, any ideas on how to get rid of this fluid?\

Many thanks to anyone who can help.

[TrishB]

What is your salt intake like? This is one of the main causes of fluid retention. Most processed foods like soups and cold cuts contain very a high sodium content. And you should not use the salt shaker at all.
So take a look at your diet to see how much sodium you are taking in.
That might be one place to start anyway. Beats taking diuretics.

[kiwichick]

Hi TrishB,

I should have noted:

Diet - clean (with the occassional, say once fortnightly, cheat, usually chocolate or icecream, not too overboard though)

Water intake - generally 3 litres per day, weekends I'm less strict

Salt - add rock salt (better than the table variety) once in a blue moon. My salt intake comes from protein bars & powders, cans of tuna and what occurs naturally in food (thought about this before and was even advised to start adding salt incase the lack of it worked against me!)

Training - currently 3 day split weights, 5 days cardio (40 mins a session)

Supplements - multi vit, vit c, chromium. After xmas will start on Lean System 7 as have heard good things - although fat loss as such isn't my area of concern.

To reduce LBM would I be on track reducing my kc to 10 x lbs for a week whilst just doing cardio (6 days in week) then for the next week kc x 11 lbs keeping cardio and adding 2 high rep all over weights workouts? then repeating?

[TrishB]

I needed to reread your post a couple of times. I could almost hear your accent while I was reading and could not quite understand every word...lol. ( I had no clue what fortnight was...had to look it up in the dictionary.)

Anyway your diet sounds fine and with your occasional cheat..which we all need. And mine are much more often than a fortnight.

I would go with decreasing the weight and increasing the reps. This would put less stress/tearing on the muscle and help to tone them down more, without losing them.

Cardio...the extra sessions will help. But change them up a bit. Do a 20 min HIIT 2-3xweek and a couple other days to a 30-40 min workout.

Give yourself about 6-8 weeks to see reduction of the muscle mass. You don't want to lose it too quick, or you will be disappointed with how you are looking.